Texas Tribune
James Barragan and Jasper Scherrer
Texas Department of Public Safety Commissioner Steve McCraw announced Friday that he will retire at the end of the year, ending a 15-year tenure marked by the department’s inept response to the recent Uvalde school shooting and its role in the state’s border enforcement campaign, Operation Lone Star.
McCraw broke the news while delivering a commencement speech at a graduation ceremony for DPS officers.
“This is rather easy because I know Governor Greg Abbott is going to ensure that my successor will be as good, and probably better, than me in this job,” McCraw said.
At the event, Governor Abbott called McCraw “one of the most highly regarded law enforcement officials in the United States” and said his “flexibility to meet the changing needs of law enforcement has truly revolutionized the Texas Department of Public Safety.”
McCraw began his career as a DPS officer in 1977 and served as a narcotics agent before joining the FBI in 1983. He rose through the ranks in Washington, leading counterterrorism efforts, including intelligence operations after the 9/11 attacks. In 2004, he returned to Texas to become Gov. Rick Perry’s director of Homeland Security as the state began to focus on border security.
Five years later, Perry appointed Mr. McCraw to be the state’s top law enforcement officer, a position he has held through a change of administration and, more recently, growing criticism of law enforcement.
On Capitol Hill, McCraw is viewed as a no-nonsense law enforcement officer and a statesman who has held his own during times of turmoil and political upheaval. Republicans generally support him as a professional, proactive DPS leader and support Abbott’s efforts to beef up border security under Operation Lone Star, deploying a large number of officers and border security technology to catch people trying to cross the border illegally or seek asylum.
Democrats have been more critical of the efforts, blasting the “militarization” of the border which they worry could lead to racial profiling because South Texas is mostly Latino. They have also criticized the agency’s border apprehension data, which they say is presented in a way that justifies the billions of dollars the state has spent on border security.
Yet McCraw was an increasingly rare agency head who held major press conferences at news events and took questions from reporters who approached him, even as he was more opaque to media inquiries.
McCraw recently came under fire for the police response to the Uvalde school shooting, in which a gunman armed with an AR-15 killed 19 students and two teachers. Officers waited outside the classroom where the gunman had holed up for more than an hour — a direct violation of active shooter training — before U.S. Border Patrol agents confronted and shot the gunman to death.
McCraw initially praised the police response but then defended it after details emerged that officers did not immediately engage the shooter, something Attorney General Merrick Garland said would have saved lives. McCraw also made other statements that proved inaccurate as the investigation progressed, including that officers did immediately engage the shooter and that a teacher left the school door open, allowing the shooter to enter the building.
State Sen. Rolando Gutierrez, a San Antonio Democrat who has been one of the police department’s fiercest critics of the response, said McCraw was the “mastermind behind the Uvalde cover-up” and has prevented victims and their families from getting the transparency they need about police missteps that day.
“McCraw’s legacy will always be failure at Uvalde, and one day he will be brought to justice for his inaction,” Gutierrez said.
Texas Ranger Christopher Ryan Kindell was the only DPS officer to lose his job over the response: He was notified he would be fired in January 2023, but appealed the decision and was reinstated earlier this month.
During his tenure, McCraw oversaw a number of major reforms to public safety agencies, including Operation Lone Star, which put state law enforcement officers in a position to deal with migrants crossing the border and raised questions about their ability to enforce immigration laws.
McCraw also supported and oversaw the outfitting of all DPS officers on patrol with body cameras. He viewed body cameras as a way to keep both police and citizens honest about their interactions, and when officers were accused of misconduct, he did not hesitate to use the footage to clear their names.
In 2018, a North Texas woman alleged that a police officer sexually assaulted her after pulling over her for suspected drunk driving, then released her in exchange for sexual favors. The allegation spread through social media and sparked a heated media debate.
But body camera footage showed a routine traffic stop that did not capture any of the woman’s allegations. Police have harshly criticized the woman and her lawyer for “vile, defamatory and false accusations.”
McCraw also led the police force through the aftermath of the suicide of Sandra Bland, a black woman who was beaten by police in the Waller County Jail, which was seen as a manifestation of systemic racism within the department and led to law changes, including better recording of use-of-force incidents and whether they resulted in suicide, assault, flight or death.
During McCraw’s tenure, the state’s population was booming and the Department of Driver’s Licenses struggled to keep up with demand from Texans for new driver’s licenses, causing long lines at state offices, sometimes in sweltering heat.
The department came under fire from Abbott after the Secretary of State’s office unsuccessfully tried to remove 100,000 people who were allegedly not U.S. citizens from voter rolls in 2019. Abbott’s office accused McCraw and the department of providing “false information” to the secretary of state and “failing to respond” to requests for more information.
